The invention disclosed herein relates generally to cooking appliances, and more particularly to a cooking appliance having a broiling element with loops of non-uniform length.
Foodstuffs may be baked or broiled inside the heated space of an oven, stove, or range (hereinafter “ovens” for simplicity) via placement of the foodstuffs on a cooking vessel such as, for example, on a broiling tray. U.S. Pat. No. 4,506,652 discloses an automatic oven for heating foodstuffs, i.e. cooking pizza, that has a heated enclosure substantially L-shape in plan to leave an exposed sector. A rotor is turned intermittently by power to carry pizzas from the exposed sector, through the heated enclosure and back to the exposed sector. In the heated enclosure the pizzas are baked by a stream of heated and reheated air circulated in a closed path. Electric radiant heaters 57 and 58 are provided for heating items individually deposited on a grid 31 as these items are rotated under the electric radiant heaters 57 and 58 in the exposed sector or quadrant.
FIG. 2 of U.S. Pat. No. 4,506,652 shows that the electric radiant heater 57 is of a sinuous shape and has a loop that extends further toward one side of the oven than another loop of the electric radiant heater. While the oven disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,506,652 may be effective for the particular heating effect desired to be imparted to a foodstuff as the foodstuff such as a pizza is rotated past various heating elements, there remains a need to provide, with respect to ovens in which foodstuffs are stationary during a cooking process, an arrangement for ensuring that foodstuffs are subjected to a more uniform degree of baking relative to one another than if a food cooking vessel on which such foodstuffs are supported in a stationary manner within an oven were instead supported above a conventional baking element.